Mission to Sierra Leone

From Meaningfulworld Mission to Sierra Leone
“Smile for Sierra Leone 🙂 …as they smile for you, despite their tragedy.”

Dr. Ani Kalayjian, Founder ATOP

Walking through the streets of Freetown, Bo, Gobaru, & Pujehun in Sierra Leone one witnesses the horrors of the evil war from 1987-2000 which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, houses burned, parks destroyed and enormous damages to the countries infrastructure.   Most of all this devastation on the surface does not seem to have destroyed the indomitable human spirit, and the monumental commitment to serve that its native people portray.   Meeting and working with Sierra Leoneans, one would easily feel at ease as their warm smiles, kind hearts, and honest approach is ever present. On first introduction, you would not know what they hold courageously inside.  Once one begins engaging deeper with the survivors, talking with them about their experiences of war, their loss, anger, fear and uncertainty loom large in the silence between each story and the emotions provoked in the telling.   Suppressed anger is rampant, with jostling brother-to-brother mindless atrocities, mutilations, and killings.   Fear and uncertainty is evoked when relating to the future.  Statements such as “perhaps they say fearfully, the war could happen once again, soon” is heard frequently.
Meaningfulworld’s Association for Trauma Outreach and Prevention (ATOP), organized and implemented by Dr Kalayjian and the US team, is the first Meaningfulworld Humanitarian Outreach Project (MHOP) of 2009.   MHOP’s goals were to assess the psychosocial and spiritual needs of the surviving community and to train outreach teams in three towns; to conduct collaborative mental health research; to define and access underlying tensions and to address the needs of the surviving communities in Sierra Leone.  The research goals were to assess the levels of distress as compared to the levels of forgiveness.
We express our gratitude to the collaborators in Sierra Leone, including Njala University, campuses in Freetown and Bo, The Psychosocial Network, and Saving Lives Through Alternate Options (SLAO.org).  The first Meaningfulworld Humanitarian Outreach team for Sierra Leone comprised of Dr. Kalayjian, Dr. Ken Suslak (Child Psychologists), Rev. Dana Mark (an interfaith Minister), Julie Lira (Art and Movement Therapist), and Gen Zado-Dennis (Videographer).  The team was also joined by Judith Lahai-Momo the Director of Saving Lives through Alternate Options, a US based non profit organization working in that region.  The Njala University Chancellor Prof Rhodes stated to the MHOP team, “Your arrival and your work in Sierra Leone is very timely, as the signs of violence are still erupting all around us.   Your teachings and trainings will be invaluable for us and your continued collaboration in future projects is much needed.”
The first two days were spent assessing the physical and human destruction. The next two days the team was busy giving intense two-day training to the community of faculty and students in Freetown at Njala University.  The team traveled next to Njala University both in Njala, as well as to the main campus in Bo for training at the Community Health Center. Then the MHOP team traveled to Gobaru and Pujehun to work with children, adolescents, and adults using draw-and-tell art therapy techniques, and movement therapy.
As Rev. Dana Mark affirms: “The trip to Africa was full of the contrasts of challenge and success.   When I think about it deeply, it was and continues to feel like an emotional balancing act, stressful, sad, but full of laughter, hope, empathy, and meaning, combined with compassion, love, patience, personal growth and much more..”
The preliminary findings of the assessments done by the team indicated high levels of Post traumatic stress disorder (70%) in adults and children, and 35% in the local mental health professionals and psychosocial rehabilitators.
The following were themes that were consistently expressed by the survivors:  destruction, horror, killing and mutilations. Horrific accounts were expressed one after the other.  One survivor’s three siblings were beheaded and their heads delivered on sticks; another survivor’s aunt was publicly crucified and then set on fire; a third woman survivor, who was at the time a 14 years old adolescent was raped publicly and repeatedly ridiculed and humiliated; and a fourth survivor was sold to a Nigerian Peace keeping soldier and forced to have children by him, finally managing to escape the horrors several years later.  These experiences caused feelings of enormous sadness, grieving, anger, shame, humiliation, frustration, fear, and uncertainty in the survivors.
These expressions of survival further humbled the team and filled them with admiration for the enduring spirit of the people before them.  Julie Lira put it so well when she reflected, “Africa was beautiful and horrific all at once. I have to say the things that I will treasure the most from my trip are the beautiful people of Sierra Leone, their stories, and seeing their God light through their eyes; I so admire their resilience in spite of all that they suffered and endured.”
Lessons learned were: Importance of their family support, that everyday living is a survival, the value of serving others, desire and hunger for education, and the value of forgiving.  As for the Meaningfulworld Team, lessons were multiple.  According to Julie: “I learned the human spirit is a strong thing that if accessed can guide us all thru a lot of trauma, and I will never forget the poverty, the lack of basic necessities.  How in one moment man can do this much harm to another man over greed is abhorant. But most of all that the power to make changes lies within each one of us.”  According to Dana the lessons were of gratitude and appreciation: “We (on this side of the world) do not realize how wonderful it is to have running water, flushing toilets, electricity and paved roads…thank you, thank you, thank you.. We also do not have the pleasure of knowing how beautiful it is to live off the land, growing our own fruits and vegetables as well as catching our dinner.”  Ken Suslak, expressed these lessons: “Above all, humility, awareness of one’s limitations and strengths in making a difference, the power of forgiveness when accompanied by social justice, the value of compassionate listening to these stories and the need to share them with the world.”
The MHOP team has established the following groups within Sierra Leone: Green Future for SL (BO branch) to address environmental needs of their communities; a mens group to encourage expression of feelings and for promoting inner peace, Meaningfulworld club to promote peaceful community where people are moved by love, forgiveness, unity, while celebrating differences and most of all service to humanity.
Future collaborative goals were set forth with Njala University, Meaningfulworld, and Fordham University.  This collaboration will start with 1. Internships and externships  2. Fulbright exchanges  3. Telesupervision  4. Collaborative research  5. Collaborative publications  and 5. Policy improvements.
Challenges for growth are ever present as Sierra Leone is dealing with multiple issues since a post war recovery that began in 2000.  Many of the global humanitarian assistance stopped since the war had ended, but the country needs continued guidance and support. Many of the international NGO’s have left the country, and not much of recovery has taken place.  Corruption is rampant, poverty continues, infrastructure is very poor, illiteracy very high, lack of basic human needs is shocking, specifically lack of running water, electricity, cooking gas, paved roads, public transportation, just to name a few.
Meaningfulworld has succeeded in its mission by: 1. Providing opportunity for release of emotions and provide opportunities for awakening; 2. Provided empathy and validation; 3. Helped survivors recover or discover lessons learned for self growth, empowerment, and meaning-making; 4. Established several groups to promote Meaningfulworld’s mission; 5. Helped share the value of forgiveness; 6. Sponsored a project for improving the Njala University Library; 7. Provided survivors with hope and with the ability to reframe their experiences; 8. Provided the surviving community and its local rehabilitators with new and healthier tools for stress reduction through assertiveness, movement, and meditation, 10. Provided them with resources, books, web links 11. Provided them with models for cooperation and 12. Sew seeds of service to the surviving community.
The Meaningfuworld Humanitarian Outreach team was welcomed home by Vice President of Development, Georgina Galanis who empathically observed: “I did hear the joy reflected in your emails  …the sadness for loss of human value through the devastation of war, the gratitude for what we all have here, and the hope we can all be, when we share as a common human value and aim, “To live a good life in love multiplied and shared”.  So happy to hear you have returned safe and blessed….I can’t wait to see you all and hear your stories…sending you all admiration for your commitment realized. I wish you all rest and rejuvenation.”
The team will be disseminating their work through publishing, research, DVD, locally, nationally and internationally.  We invite you to continue to “Smile for Sierra Leone” as they smile for you despite their tragic history ….. and please don’t hesitate to send your generous donations to be part of the change you want to see.  The work has just begun in Sierra Leone, we need to continue it, and we need your unconditional and genuine involvement and support.

Changemakers, committed service professionals and laypersons wanting to join our Meaningfulworld Humanitarian Outreach missions upcoming in 2009-10 please register for our 7 month certificate training.

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